6/09/2009 @ 12:00AM

What's So Wrong With DADT?

My colleague Shikha Dalmia recently weighed in on the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” issue in this section. The time has come, she said, to allow gays openly to serve in the military, time for President Obama keep his promise and to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” As with abolition and desegregation, she said, “equal rights for gays is an idea whose time is way overdue.”

Perhaps so, but it’s distressing that the opposing viewpoint to hers is so seldom heard. One knows why: The discussion quickly turns to name calling. Demurrers get tarred as sneaky fascists who, given half a chance, would restore slavery and foot binding. People clam up for fear that their reputations might be destroyed through public odium. Traditionalists are left with mumbling about “unit cohesion” and “combat effectiveness” as they duck their heads in shame. Therefore, one feels compelled–against all cautionary good sense–to barge into the debate uninvited.

One is grateful that Ms. Dalmia’s arguments do not turn emotional; she makes no mention of “hate” or “hate crimes” or “bigotry,” but she does slip in talk of justice, tolerance and the like, as if the most inherently intolerant of human functions–the use of armed force–would be best practiced by citizens whose foremost qualities are best suited to peaceable, civilian habits. Still, one wouldn’t want our soldiers to be intolerant of one another. Or would one?

It depends on your definition of tolerance: We should never ask soldiers to tolerate anyone on the basis of “identity.” We should demand only that they tolerate soldierly qualities in each other and ignore all else. Actually, soldiers don’t need to think about any of this stuff. They need to be tolerant, or otherwise, exactly to the degree that their fellow professionals prove to be good or bad soldiers where it counts, when the bullets fly. They don’t need to think about whether or how much their comrade in the trench might turn out to be gay.

To that point, Ms. Dalmia’s counter would be that soldiers have successfully accepted blacks and other minorities–why not gays? This is where Ms. Dalmia’s thesis begins–with the inevitability fallacy, a version of the old “Whig interpretation of history.” History marches toward freedom and enlightenment and equality for all, ergo the time is always overdue for something or other in the area of political rights. And the fellow who resists the inevitable (pro-gay position) now resembles the fellow who resisted manumission then. Here is Ms. Dalmia’s ably argued opening deployment of that familiar ontology:

“Wars are riddled with all kinds of twisted ironies. During the Civil War, the Union army initially spurned blacks who it was crusading to emancipate–while the Confederate army recruited them in the final desperate hours of its fight to enslave them. In World War II, the United States sacrificed about half a million American soldiers to defeat Nazi racism. Yet the U.S. itself practiced strict racial segregation, including within its military.

Given such blatant historic contradictions, it seems like no big deal that now, while the U.S. valiantly tries to plant tolerant liberal regimes in Islamic countries, at home it harbors among the most intolerant policies toward gays in the military in the Western world.”

A number of black social conservatives have dealt with this line of reasoning by pointing out that being black is not a choice or a decision or a form of conduct–merely a skin color. In their eyes, being gay is not an equivalent condition. But I would point out a different concern. The military achieves maximum efficacy to the extent that it employs those most qualified to function as soldiers. For that reason, the military must be colorblind racially–and sexually. Your “identity” matters not a whit, and anyone trying to declare their identity for public knowledge in the armed forces is trying to introduce some other invidious criterion into the mix. From this standpoint, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which doesn’t, after all, bar homosexuals from serving, would seem to be the perfect policy.

At this point in the debate, gay rights activists (and Ms. Dalmia) tend to shift their logic. Not making an issue of a soldier’s sexual preference as long as the soldier does not make an issue of it is not good enough. One must accept gays qua gays. After all, our own soldiers have become more tolerant (as the forward march of enlightenment would dictate) in the 15 years of the “Don’t Ask” policy. And anyway other armies tolerate gays and there’s no evidence of a lowering in warrior standards.

In support of the first point, Ms. Dalmia cites a 2006 Zogby poll, which, she says, proves her point because it found that 72% of returning Iraq and Afghanistan vets were “personally comfortable” around gays. Perhaps she didn’t read the report in detail. At the bottom of page five of the poll, one finds the following statement: “Asked whether they agree that gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve in the military, respondents were closely split with a plurality (37%) disagreeing with the idea, and 26% agreeing they should be allowed.” One also finds that less than one-quarter of those asked were aware of gays in their units. The report also says that those who had served 15 years or more, and those in the upper ranks, generally stood against including gays in the military.

What about other armies in NATO? Most don’t object to gays and don’t notice any drop in fighting spirit from the inclusion of gays, or so the argument goes. But here, one wants to ask, which military in NATO should our soldiers emulate? The Dutch? The Germans? Whose warrior standards have so stood the test of combat in recent years that we should rush to adopt their standards? The British? How did they perform in Iraq?

Last time I visited Baghdad, I had to suffer the standard military ordeal of waiting sleeplessly for days in appalling heat to catch transportation into Iraq, and then between bases in country. The American approach to the process was pretty impersonal and merciless. I didn’t like it, but that’s the military for you. In contrast, I noticed a British flight being scheduled by a fey-voiced male sergeant who conducted himself with painstaking kindness to his colleagues, especially his female comrades who he called “luv.” Much more pleasant to deal with. But alas, one thought, it’s not that kind of a war–as wars tend not to be. I felt securer in the brusqueness of the American approach.

Many point to the Israeli Defence Forces, as does Ms. Dalmia. They’ve accepted gays since the 1990s. Says Ms. Dalmia, “it remains one of the best fighting forces in the world.” Well, yes and no. Israel lost an on-the-ground campaign against Hezbollah and had to wage the next one from the air. That kind of air and artillery campaign, rightly or wrongly, is fast becoming highly controversial in the world’s eyes. Furthermore, Israel is a much smaller country perpetually fighting for survival–within and around its borders. It has other pressures that enforce cohesion on its military. And I’ve heard plenty of Israelis compare today’s soldiers unfavorably with those of decades past.

I would make a further point that most pundits in this debate seem terrified of making. As with gays, the U.S. military has had to struggle with the question of women. There is a reason women in most armies don’t get to serve in combat. Leaving aside whether they are temperamentally suited to the business of killing or indeed whether we want them to acquire such qualities, the fact is, armies and men in armies, at least in part, fight to protect women and children from harm–that psychological impulse is a strong motivating force in combat, one that has existed since the Cro-Magnon fought off the mastodon.

An ancient noble instinct urges the soldier to overcome the equally ancient impulse of fear as he engages the enemy, and we have no business making things any harder for the combatant by messing with that simple and coherent sense of duty. How do we square the inclusion of self-avowed homosexuals with that necessity? Such issues may bring up uncomfortably divisive narratives, but if you find them uncomfortable, consider the effect on the highly overstressed psychology of the soldier in and out of combat.

Finally, we should be wary of forcing the military to mirror in detail all aspects of contemporary social life. The military, for example, is a far more religious environment than society at large because soldiers have to deal with the questions of life, death, eternity and the afterlife far more than the rest of us. Just as there exists the inevitability fallacy on the pro-gay side, the opposing side has a slippery slope fear. Employing anyone who publicly belabors their minority affiliation turns the process into affirmative action. From not caring about which minorities soldiers might belong to, it’s a short but highly dangerous step to inducting them because of their affiliation, in order to appear more inclusive and enlightened. That is not the military’s function. Indeed, if empirical studies suddenly showed that a gays-only army could provide the best fighting force we need in our current wars, I would vote for such an army immediately.

All societies, in the struggle for survival, have had to find a balance between a military ethos and a military that reflects society’s peacetime principles. History is full of horrors where a civilization has erred too far on either side. We are in the heart of that predicament in the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” debate. All sides must feel secure enough to voice their viewpoints without fear of shame. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” may work for the troops–the military is not the Oxford Union–but civilian life is different, in this as in so many other ways.